A bit of a curate’s egg last weekend, our Men’s 1st XV notched up their 3rd win in 3 games 28-51, this time away to Worthing, in an ill-tempered affair that saw Worthing lose two players to red cards. Our Women’s 1st XV kicked off their first season in the championship, going down 5-32 to local rivals Hammersmith and Fulham.

The Raiders, our Men’ 2nd XV, fought valiantly against the outstanding Richmond Vikings team, conceding 3 tries in the last 15 mins to lose 33-3, whilst the Occies were mighty in overcoming Feltham in their first league outing.

You can read the match reports to these games below this intro.

This weekend sees a host of fixtures, most notable both our Men’s and Women’s 1st XVs are at Barn Elms.
Our Women take on Medway on Sunday with a 2:30pm kick off, and of course on Saturday there is the National League 2 East game of the season so far, a clash of the two unbeaten titans in the league, with our Men’s 1st XV taking on Dorking. Whilst we lie 2nd in the league, Dorking are ahead of us in top spot on points difference only. It is going to be a humdinger, and we owe them big time, they were the only club to beat us home and away last season, and in both games we lost by the narrowest of margins, 17-13 at their place and 25-26 at Barn Elms.

Already so early in the season we do however have a host of injuries and unavailability, including a whole pack of forwards, who would normally be first team regulars, and several high-quality backs, also crocked - we have a higher than normal incidence of head injuries, we are already considering whether this is related to the new tackle height laws.
Rather than the RFU just refute this anecdotal evidence as "you guys just have poor tackle technique" we are going to talk to a number of clubs across the national leagues to see if our trend is being experienced by others - watch this space.

This injury roster makes the task of beating the only team that beat us home and away last season a huge one. BUT we are at home, and we have the 16th player on our side too in our fantastic vocal supporters, and when our backs are against the wall we always dig deeper!

Everything kicks off on Friday night as our older brethren dust off their Zimmer frames at Chiswick RFC, and on Saturday both the Raiders and the Occies are at home too facing Dorking 2nd XV and Lightwater respectively.

On Sunday, as well as our Women’s 1st XV playing, our Women's 2nd XV also plays in their opening game of the season, against Old Ruts.

This week I am delighted to announce the official launch of our online ticketing platform and 1st XV matchday programme, the result of a huge amount of work and drive by our dual pocket rockets Rich Fenech and George Frisby, more than ably assisted by Carla Oates.
Whilst fully paid up club members have free access, non-members can buy game access here - it is dead simple, even I did it: https://app.fanbaseclub.com

Once you have registered the rest is a piece of cake!

To access our sexy new online 1st XV progamme simply click on the link below and prepare to be amazed as we do our bit to reduce waste and save the planet:
BarnesRFCMatchProgramme

Please do turn up to Barn Elms in your 100’s to support our teams playing on Saturday and Sunday, both our Men’s and Women’s 1st XV’s really need you this weekend! and if you fancy a stroll across the river to Chiswick RFC on Friday night, then the Originals would love to see you too!

Onwards and Upwards Barnow!

Michael Whitfield President - Barnes RFC

FIXTURES THIS WEEKEND:
Friday 22nd September
• Chiswick RFC vs Barnes Originals - 7:45pm KO
Saturday 23rd September
• Barnes Men’s 1st XV vs Dorking 1st XV - 3pm KO
• Barnes 2nd XV vs Dorking 2nd XV - 2pm KO
• Barnes Occies vs Lightwater – 3pm KO
Sunday 24th September
• Barnes Women 1st XV vs Medway - 2:30pm KO
• Old Ruts vs Barnes Women 2nd XV - 2:30pm KO

Worthing Raiders 28 - 51 Barnes Men’s 1st XV - words by Rhino
Barnes last played Worthing at their place on the last day of last season in scorching sunshine, a game that saw us lose in the last kick of the match.

With a worrying symmetry, the game started again in hot sunny weather, the symmetry amplified further by a first half that reflected that nip-and-tuck roller coaster of nearly six months ago, with Barnes taking the lead only for Worthing to haul us back in again, so much so that at the break the lead by one point 20-21, a score which gave no clue to the drama about to unfold in the second period.

Worthing had the early pressure and scored far too easily with Harrison Sims running through us from 40 metres to touch down. A touch of irony saw Louis Ellis, last year a Barnes player, slot the conversion to give his new team a 7-0 lead.

Having been given that early wake up call, Barnes began to dominate both possession and field position. Our forwards and backs running powerfully with ball in hand, braking first up tackles and off-loading skillfully, scoring three tries through George Dean, Giles Bromley-Martin and Chris Stegmann, Ben Cook kicking one of the conversions to give us a 7-17 lead.

But instead of locking out the half, Raiders were allowed to come back on the offensive, clawing their way back to take a half time lead of 21-20, with tries by Barnes old-boy Louis Ellis (I bet he enjoyed that one!) and Harrison Sims grabbing his second try of the half. Ben Cook added a penalty for Barnes to give Worthing the slenderest of leads.

With both sides playing entertaining rugby there was plenty for the crowd of nearly four hundred to enjoy, and the Worthing faithful would have gone into to refill their pint glasses with a confident swagger.

However, soon the Worthing balloon would be well and truly popped!

Despite early Worthing pressure, it was Barnes who scored first in the second half, Ben Cook slotting another penalty, a reward for some pressure of our own, which saw Barnes retake the lead 21-23.

This was soon followed by a try from the ever-impressive Jordan Souter, duly converted by Cook, which stretched our lead to 21-30. This fast start and scores early in the second half from Barnes undoubtedly led to a build-up of pressure on Worthing, which then led to a few minutes of madness carried out by the home team, which saw two players red-carded for foul play and a reckless tackle, and a third yellow carded for good measure, leaving Worthing in a seemingly hopeless situation.

We camped on the Worthing line and were awarded multiple penalties, and scored two more tries, from Ryan Nixon and skipper Josh Davies, the second one being a JD virtuoso special sniping run, Ben Cook converted both and extended our lead to an unassailable 21-44.

Worthing continued to fight gallantly (and legally!) rotating their players from the bench to give those on the pitch a breather. With thirteen men the home side showed great spirit, and continued to play good rugby in their attempt to get a fourth try to secure a bonus point which, to their credit, they did get with skipper Jack Forrest breaking through our Barnes defensive line to score.

The last laugh was ours though, with a try from Paul O’Dell in the dying moments, Cook’s conversion making the final score 28-51 to Barnes RFC.
Despite the win and five points, which of course we willingly take, it would have been much more rewarding to have won with there being 15 players on the pitch for all of the second half.

I am sure Worthing will feel a sense of “what might have been” had they been at full strength - that debate may have to wait until our next close encounter of the Worthing kind, which takes place in early January, when one thing is for certain, it definitely will not be hot and sunny at Barn Elms that day!

Onwards and upward to this weekend, when we take on Dorking, the only club to beat us home and away, and in both games by the narrowest of margins, 17-13 at their place and 25-26 at Barn Elms. We owe them, we definitely owe them!

Barnes Women's 1st XV 5-32 Hammersmith and Fulham Women's 1st XV - words by Ruth Mottershead

Sunday 17th September was a historic day for Barnes Women as we played our first game in Championship 2.

Our opponent was Hammersmith & Fulham, who finished second in this league last season and are aiming for promotion into Champ 1 this year, so we knew it was going to be a tough test. Spirits we high on game day and everyone was excited to show what Barnes can do.

The first 20 minutes of play was brutally physical from both sides, with Barnes having the majority of possession keeping Hammers pinned in their half. We came out fighting, and it looked like we took the more experienced side by surprise. Our forwards hit hard lines, supported by runs from the backs, but Hammers matched us hit for hit. Eventually after 30 minutes Hammers chose to kick a penalty, putting the score to 3-0.

A series of mistakes from us allowed Hammers through to score twice in quick succession before half time.

The second half was more of the same, huge hits from both sides and a real physical test for us. We got close to the try line several times but were unable to get over. Eventually a strong maul led to a yellow card for one of the opposition, and soon after this a series of forwards carries resulted in quick hands through the backs for winger Liv to score in the corner - our first championship try!

The final whistle blew with a score of 32-5 to Hammers, who were a ferociously good team. Despite the score line we were absolutely buzzing - we had played the best team in our new league, showed we are more than capable of playing at championship level and had a really enjoyable game of rugby.

Then entire squad performed incredibly. Caroline had her first team debut and put on a show with strong hand offs and tackles.

Back of the match was our new scrum half Ashley, who showed great control of the game and her passing allowed us to play wide.

forward of the match went to Sasha, who as well as running hard lines and jackling all game also took over lineout throwing duties.

This weeks players player was number 8 Taz, a top performer as always and made some breaks and showed her defensive skills.

We look forward to welcoming Medway to Barnes this Sunday, and are hoping for our first championship win.

Richmond Vikings 33-3 Barnes Raiders (our 2nd XV) words by Dom Palacio
The mighty Richmond Vikings 2nd XV machine rolled on last Saturday and emerged victorious against Barnes 2nd XV 33-3.

Round 3 of the Raging Bull Merit League saw us take on one of the best sides in the leagues’ history, undoubtedly always the toughest side we play each season.

On paper, the final result looks like a bit of a shellacking. In truth it was much closer than the score suggests, with the Raiders down only 12-3 into the last quarter.

The home team started with tenacity, and we were under the cosh from the off. A motivated Barnes team, confident after putting 60 points on Esher last time out, stood firm in our 22m and repelled the invading hordes, turning over Vikings 3 times in the first 10 minutes.

Despite the massive defensive shift that we put in, when we ourselves went on the attack, we failed to take any points on the 7 visits we made into the Richmond 22. It was massively frustrating for all concerned, with our set piece failing to fire up, from a combination of unavailability, injuries and how we were allowed to play by this talented Richmond side.
Vikings continued to apply pressure on us in the second half, which paid dividends in the last 20 minutes, as we conceded 24 points in the final quarter.

Our performance is not reflected by the final score of 33-3, and it was a good step forward for the drubbing we go from them last year, small stepping stones on the road to redemption!

This weekend we are at home to Dorking 2nd XV, and we will be looking for a big performance from our boys to set us back on the path of victory.